Nausicaä and the Dorok Priest
by ice73
Summary: A vignette set after the conclusion of the manga series. A chance meeting with a Dorok priest shows Nausicaä another consequence of her destruction of the Crypt of Shuwa . . . .


**Disclaimer:** Characters © Animage/ Hayao Miyazaki/ Studio Ghibli. This work is not intended for commercial gain or to otherwise challenge the status of these copyrights.

**Author's Note: **This work is based on the English manga version of _Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä_, by Viz Select Comics.

* * *

**NAUSICAÄ AND THE DOROK PRIEST**

The small flyer zoomed high above the vast Forest of Corruption. At the controls was the Prince of Pejitei, Asbel. His passenger was none other than the blue-clad one herself, Nausicaä, daughter of Jhil of the Valley of the Wind. 

It had been two years since the end of the terrible Dorok-Torumekian war and the devastating _daikaisho_. Nausicaä was still very busy putting the deep enmity between various tribes to rest, knowing she was trying to push a boulder straight up a cliff, but still doing her best anyway.

In the rear cockpit, Asbel watched the vast forest of fungi sliding beneath them. "Hard to believe it's been just over a year since the _daikaisho_," he said into his microphone. "Look how far the forest has spread."

"Yes, but at least it is at peace now," came the voice over his headset.

"Which is more than can be said for what's left of humanity," added Asbel.

The reason for their long journey was a letter from the Queen Regent of Torumekia, Kushana. In it she had noted a rumor that some tribes were seeking to expand their meager lands along the coast by raising the sea floor. How they were going to do it, she didn't know, as the technology to do so would have been destroyed along with the Crypt of Shuwa. She had asked for no help, not even advice; but Nausicaä knew her enough to look into it.

Ordinarily she would have traveled alone; but the Prince insisted on coming along, even though he hated Kushana with a passion. The Queen Regent had, at the start of the war, been the cause of the destruction of his city-state of Pejitei and had kidnapped—and caused the death of—his younger sister. He and a few others were all that were left with Pejitan blood still in their veins. Sometimes he still felt like going to Torumekia and impaling her on a spear, leaving her stuck on it like a flag on a pole in the middle of the ruins of his beloved city. Yet he remembered the way Lord Yupa, Nausicaä's mentor, had sacrificed himself to save her from vengeful Dorok troops. So when Nausicaä had asked him if he was sure of what he was doing, he merely nodded and she understood.

To say that he was only doing his duty would have been a falsehood, however. For he also loved the Princess. It was true that everyone who met her grew to love her; but he loved her more than most. But he also knew a heavy burden lay on her shoulders, young and frail though they were, and she would not—could not—answer his own. For she was consumed by a cause greater than herself, greater than the safety of the people of the Valley. So he kept his silence and helped her any way he could.

Old Mito would have flown the Princess on this trip; but he was too sick, laid up in the castle where he had once continuously fretted and worried about her, as her guardian. "You're going to have to watch over her now," said he before they left, clasping Asbel's hand in one grown as hard as stone.

The craft they were flying in was new, a gift from the people of the Valley to their new ruler. They had built it, slowly and with loving care, over the course of the years, using what metal and scraps of Ohmu shell they could find. It looked a bit like the old Gunship but was unarmed, and it could fly faster and higher than any other aircraft. Nausicaä had been overcome with emotion when the elders had presented it to her. They knew she was not going to stay in the valley long: in fact, once she had gone, she would probably never return. So they gave her something to help her in her journeys and to remind her of home. As a gifted pilot, she had taken it up on its first flight and announced that she was delighted with it. "It flies faster than the wind," she had said on her return. She gave it the name "Arrow," for its speed.

Too soon, she had taken her leave of the Valley, and all the people who could come gathered around the castle to see her go. They wept as their beloved Child of the Wind flew away on wings they themselves had built.

"Will we see her again?" asked Tepa, a young girl gifted in flying, destined to be the Valley's new Child of the Wind, as they watched the Princess' craft disappear into the distant blue sky.

"I fear not," said old Granny, the soothsayer who had once served Jhil and now lived her remaining years giving advice to the council of elders ruling the Valley in Nausicaä's place.

They had traveled steadily towards Torumekia since they left the Valley, flying as low and slow as conditions permitted, since Nausicaä was keen on observing the forest and how it was progressing. They had stopped in various towns along the way, and more than once the presence of the blue-clad one had stopped brewing conflicts. She no longer wore the blood-stained clothes that had been mentioned in the prophecies and had earned her the sobriquet; instead she wore blue-dyed clothes that were a gift to her from the Mani tribe of the Doroks. Her old clothes she had had buried beside Lord Yupa.

It was their second day out from the last town they visited, a miserable ceramic-mining place with fewer than five hundred souls. The forest stretched out beneath them, seemingly endless.

It was just past mid-day when Asbel heard Nausicaä exclaim, "Look down below!"

Asbel banked the plane to the left so he could see better. There was a dark spot moving in a clearing on the ground. "That looks like a man," he said.

Suddenly something dark burst in from the edge of the clearing like a flood. "A swarm of pillbugs!"

"Stern cockpit. Let's go help him."

"Roger."

_Just like Nausicaä,_ Asbel thought as he put Arrow into a screaming dive, then reversed course. _She doesn't even know who it is, but still goes to help._ He wagged the wings to look at the ground. As it was turning out, Arrow's performance suited him like a glove; and so did the temperament of his passenger, who never complained when he did these maneuvers, unlike others he had flown with. Perhaps it was because when it came to flying she was just as daring—Mito would say reckless—as he was.

Approaching the clearing from where the swarm of pillbugs had emerged, Asbel slowed down and dropped a hundred feet, barely clearing the tall stalks of fungi that swished by past them.

"They're gaining on him," Nausicaä said. "They're too mad to talk to. I'm going to use the insect bombs and flares."

"Roger."

A torrent of small, marble-shaped things dropped from holes in the underside of the plane, to land amidst the seething mass of insects. There was a confusion of loud explosions and flashes of blinding light. Designed to deter the residents of the Sea of Corruption without killing them, the bombs and flares began scattering the swarm, which retreated back into the safety of the forest. For good measure Asbel dropped a pair of insect shells, which frightened the pillbugs with an eerie, deafening siren wail.

"It looks like they're turning back," said Nausicaä. "Let's land, quickly!"

Asbel extended the bird-like undercarriage and brought the craft down. He had judged the landing perfectly, rolling to a stop beside the figure, who was dressed in a black robes and wore a bug-like breathing mask.

Nausicaa opened her canopy and stood up. "Get in!" she urged the figure.

The figure took a step forward and then stopped, as if in shock. "The blue-clad one!" she heard a male voice exclaim. The figure dropped to its knees.

"Please, get up," said Nausicaä, jumping down from the cockpit. "The insects will be back before long!" She pulled him up and hustled him into the cockpit. She told him to sit down on her seat, and then she sat on his lap.

"Please!" said the man. "Be careful where you sit, for heaven's sake!"

Nausicaä smiled at him. "Just bear with me for a while," she said. Plugging her headset cord in, she said to Asbel, "Stern cockpit, taking off."

"Okay, hold on." Asbel drove Arrow to the edge of the clearing and turned her around, apologizing for the bumpiness.

"How are you doing there?" he asked.

"Bit cramped, but fine. I'm leaving the canopy open."

"Roger. Here we go!" He shoved the throttles full forward.

After a very short run the plane leapt off the ground. As they climbed, Asbel could see a flood of insects emerging from the forest into the clearing.

"Not a moment too soon," he said to no one in particular.

In the front cockpit, the man tapped Nausicaä on the shoulder. "Thank you for rescuing me," he shouted, straining to be heard over the noise of the engine and the wind.

Nausicaä turned around to look at him. "It was nothing. Where can we drop you off?"

The man pointed in the direction from which they had come. "See that low hill over there?"

She nodded.

"Just beyond that would be fine."

Nausicaä told Asbel where to go. She immediately heard the engines' whine die down, as their destination was very near and Asbel was already within gliding distance.

She risked pulling her mask off. "What were you doing all alone in the middle of the forest?"

The man, seeing as how the blue-clad one had pulled off her mask, removed his own.

"You're a Dorok priest!" said Nausicaä, seeing the marks on his face.

He nodded. "Yes, I am. And I have seen you before, so I don't need to ask who you are." He was old, around sixty. "My name is Koru, of Sapata."

"What were you doing down there?"

"I was looking for a friend when I stumbled into a nest of bugs. I've been leading them on a merry chase for an hour now when you came along. I'm glad you did. This old body of mine wouldn't have lasted much longer."

"Bow cockpit," came Asbel's voice over the intercom. "We're landing."

A few minutes later, Arrow came to a stop beside what appeared to be a ruined building some distance from the forest's edge. After Asbel had shut the engines off, Nausicaä leapt down from the cockpit, followed by the old man.

The old man bowed repeatedly, thanking her again and again. "I'm no savior," she told him. "I'm just an ordinary human being like you."

"Will you not stop and rest for a while?" he asked, wanting to show his gratitude.

Nausicaä turned to Asbel, who had come up beside her and was removing his mask. "I wouldn't mind," he said. She nodded.

The old man led them across the sandy ground to the entrance of the ruined building. It looked very old, somehow too old to have been touched by the war, crumbling and in disrepair though it was.

"It looks like a shrine of some sort," remarked Asbel.

"It is," the old man confirmed. "According to my research, this is a leftover from the world before the Seven Days of Fire."

"It is? Why did you choose to live here?" asked Nausicaä, running her hand over the old stone.

"Yeah," said Asbel. "It's a long way from Sapata to here, old man."

The old man was silent for a while as he led them further into the gloomy interior. "You had something to do with it," he replied at last, looking at Nausicaä.

"What do you mean?" Koru didn't answer.

There was a room off the building's long main hall, into which he led them. He opened a window to light the place and asked them to sit down. "I will be back with some food," he said.

It was already dark when, after sharing a frugal meal, Nausicaä asked the priest, "You said you saw me before. Might I ask where?"

Koru looked at her and closed his eyes for a long second, as if reliving old memories. "I was one of those," he replied, voice unsteady, "chained to the rocks when you rescued Charuka."

"Oh, Father," gasped Nausicaä, remembering the horrible sight. The priests of the Dorok had been been chained to rock pillars and were being stoned to death by a mob when she had arrived and, with the help of Luwa Chikuku Kulubalkuwa, persuaded them to stop. "I'm glad you're alright."

"I was one of Charuka's aides," the old man continued. "After the war, he put me in charge of one group of settlers. We tried to make a new life along the coast, but one by one the settlers grew sick and died, until less than half were left. I returned with them to the capital and, in shame for my failure, sought to end my life in the forest. Long did I travel, but it seemed even Death avoided me, until I found this place and decided to stay here, far away from the rest of mankind."

Nausicaä placed a hand on the priest's own, in sympathy. "We've all lost much in these wars."

"And we will lose more still," said the priest. Asbel could see the glint of anger in his eyes, but Koru quickly turned away. He glanced at Nausicaä and knew she had caught it too. But there was nothing but compassion in her eyes.

"Father?" said Nausicaä in a gentle voice. "You have something to say?"

Koru shook his head. "Forgive me, Princess Nausicaä. But seeing you has reopened old wounds I have tried so hard to heal."

"Seven hundred fifty two died under my care," the priest said in a monotone. "Day after day I had to administer last rites to people whom I couldn't help. Day after day parents who were sick themselves carried their dying children into the church hoping I could cure them. Day after day I visited the houses of those too ill to come to the shrine, trying everything I knew to heal them. And still people kept on dying. The time came when I wished I myself would get sick and die along with them…" The priest covered his eyes with his hands and wept.

Nausicaä embraced the old man. Asbel looked on in pity. What was there to say to one who had suffered that much?

"Your pardon. Pardon me," repeated the old man, wiping his tears away. "Fortune did not bring you here to listen to an old man's tale of woe, blue-clad one. But if there were anything I would say," he continued, "it would be this: I wish you hadn't destroyed the Crypt of Shuwa."

"Why not, Father?" asked Nausicaä, surprised.

"The knowledge could have helped save my people," answered Koru, his voice rising. "There most certainly would have been a cure to the mysterious illness which plagued us. And I am not only thinking about what happened to me, Princess Nausicaä. There is still much sickness in the world. People are still dying daily of maladies which our medicine has no cure for. Wouldn't have that been worth keeping the Crypt intact?"

"Had she done that," replied Asbel hotly, "we would still be under the thumb of the Master of the Crypt!"

"Better to be alive and have a second chance at freedom than dead and have no chance at all!" rejoined Koru. "By destroying the crypt you have doomed countless others to a slow and lingering death!"

"Why you ungrateful…"

"Stop it! Stop it, both of you!"

They both turned to look at Nausicaä. She wore a grief-stricken expression on her face. There were no tears, for she who had lost so much was not going to weep so readily; but one knew, just by looking at her, that if she had cried out her sorrow, her tears would have been more than enough to drown the remaining human lands.

"I'm sorry, Father," she said, staring at the little lantern that lit the room in its feeble light, her voice very small. She could see in her mind's eye the blood on her feet, and the voice of the Nothingness roaring _Among the dead there are those you killed yourself!_ "I could not save us all… I'm just as guilty of killing people as the soldiers behind their guns…maybe even more so…"

Aghast at what he had said and done, Koru prostrated himself in front of her. "Please forgive me! Forgive the harsh words of a bitter old man! I am eternally in your debt, yet I do this to you…" Overcome with shame, he jumped up and ran out into the darkness.

"Hey! Come back!" yelled Asbel, running after the old man as far as the door. He stared into the blackness. "Come back!" his voice echoed.

"Asbel." He turned around.

Nausicaä looked at him sadly and shook her head. "He's right, you know. I made my decision, but… what he says is true. I gave life to some people by taking it away from others."

He went to her and cradled her head against his chest. "It's a cruel world we live in, Asbel." He felt a splash on his arm, then another, and another. He held her against him as the tears started to flow in earnest.

------oOo------

Late the next morning Asbel had woken to find Nausicaä deep in conversation with Koru. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, and arose from the thick pile of straw which he had lain in after putting Nausicaä on her own pallet. She had cried herself to sleep.

"…humbly ask for your forgiveness," he heard the Dorok priest saying. "I had forgotten how hard your road must be for you, the chosen one, the savior of the world."

He watched as she shook her head. "Why should I forgive you," she said, "when all you've done is speak the truth? But what is done is done. We all have to live with the consequences of our decisions." She turned to Asbel and said, "Good morning."

"Good morning," he answered, a question in his voice. She nodded, indicated everything was well, if not quite happy.

As he stumbled out of the room, still groggy, a pitcher of water in his hand, looking for a place where he could do his morning ablutions, Nausicaä turned to Koru. "You can't hide forever in this place," she said. "Go back home, and help others start a new life."

"I am more inclined to consider it, Highness, now that I have met you. I am not hiding," said Koru, "but I do need this place to do what I have set out to do."

"What's that?" she asked, remembering the previous night's conversation. "Not to kill yourself?"

Koru shook his bald head. "Actually, I gave up on that a long time ago," he said. "But since I have been a priest all my life, I thought I could do something else for a change. Something no one else would ordinarily do."

"That is—? "

"Let us wait for your friend, then I will show you."

After Asbel had finished his breakfast, Koru led them both to the end of the main hall. There, propped against the wall, obviously part of the ruined building itself, was something that looked vaguely like an altar.

"Here I sit and pray," said the priest. "I stay here the whole day long, saying prayers for all those who have fallen in that wretched war—and all those yet to fall. Other people usually are too busy to do this task." He looked at Nausicaä. "This is why I have chosen to live here, and this is what I have set out to do. In some small way, I hope it lightens the burden on your shoulders, your Highness."

"It surely must," said Asbel, gazing up at the high stone structure. Pejitans were almost as religious as the Doroks themselves.

Privately, Nausicaä thought it would be a more fitting repentance for Koru to return home to help other people in need, but she held her peace. She thanked the old man. "We have to leave," she said. "It's still a long day's flight to Torumekia."

"Before you leave," said Koru, "I recall hearing from one of the Wormhandlers who passed through our village that you had lost your fox-squirrel."

_Teto._ She nodded. "That's right."

"Well, then," said the priest, whistling loudly. There was an answering shriek which echoed throughout the hall. Something small and furry came trotting out of the darkness.

"When I told you yesterday I was out in the middle of the forest looking for a friend, I was telling you the truth. This is her."

"A fox-squirrel?" said Asbel in amazement.

The small creature with the long, tufted ears and round reddish eyes jumped onto Koru's arm. It nuzzled his cheek and let out a series of satisfied-sounding chitters. Unlike Teto, Nausicaä's pet, this one had bluish-black fur and pale yellowish stripes along its body.

"Yes, well, we were out foraging and this one got bitten by wanderlust again. She decided that chasing a baby pillbug was lots of fun, and that's what got us into trouble in the first place." The old priest stretched his arm out. "I would like to give her to your Highness, if you'd accept. The day is coming when I will no longer be able to take care of her, so…"

Nausicaä let the fox-squirrel sniff her finger, remembering when she had first laid eyes on Teto, whom Lord Yupa had rescued from the forest. "Hello there," she said softly.

"What's her name?"

"Saila."

"Hello, Saila," said Nausicaä, as the little creature jumped onto her shoulder, sniffing, tickling her. "Would you like to go on a trip with me?"

The fox-squirrel transferred itself to her opposite shoulder, rubbing against the back of her neck, and sat down.

"I take that as a yes," said the priest. "Goodbye, Saila. I hope you'll behave yourself and not let Princess Nausicaä suffer wild goose chases the way you've let me experience them."

"I don't carry chiko nuts anymore…"

"Don't worry, I have some here."

They returned to Koru's room. As the pair gathered up their gear and prepared to go back to their plane, he said, "Thank you for everything you've done for all of us, blue-clad one. I hope someday we'll meet again."

"I hope so too," said Nausicaä. "Will you go back to Sapata? They need all the help they can get, you know."

"As I told you, your Highness, I will think about it."

------oOo------

Later, Asbel was setting course for Torumekia when Nausicaä called him.

"Asbel?"

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

"What?"

"Do you think Koru was right, that we should have left the Crypt intact?"

"No. It's better to live free like this. Had we left it standing, its cursed secrets would have still leaked out. The cycle of destruction would have run to its final, inevitable course. Maybe this time, without the Master's influence, the remainder of humanity will become wise enough to survive all of this. Excepting dear Kushana…"

"Asbel…"

"I was only joking."

"Take us up."

"Pardon?"

"Up beyond the clouds, Asbel. I want to forget things for a while."

"Copy."

Up soared Arrow, into the bright blue of the sky.


End file.
